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Article: MEMORY LANE.
- Article from:
- WWD
- Article date:
- June 2, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Conde Nast Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Vanessa Lawrence
NEW YORK -- Reading Umberto Eco's latest novel, "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana," is like being submerged in a vast sea of cultural references, philosophical musings and literary witticisms. In other words, it's like every other Eco novel.
So it should come as no surprise that Eco's conversational repartee is equally playful. "I try never to speak about the personal story of my characters because if I could do that in a few words, I would have sent a telegram instead of writing a novel," he quips in response to a question on the provenance of his protagonist's identity.
Thankfully, Eco resisted the telegram. An ...